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With her new volume of stories “Kummer aller Kind” the German author Mariana Leky proves once again how comforting literature can be.
From lovesickness to fear of space, conflict and flying to embarrassing childhood experiences: the stories of 49-year-old Mariana Leky sparkle with tongue-in-cheek humour. Even if the topic is serious, for example because it is about the fear of a serious illness.
There is that certain “Mariana Leky tone” that you already know from her bestseller “What you can see from here”. A sound that enchants when reading. And you always ask yourself: How does the writer do that?
Everyday life in the rental house
In her new book “Kummer aller Kind” the author collects columns that previously appeared in the journal “Psychologie heute”. They are everyday stories, told by a first-person narrator who lives in an apartment building in Berlin and observes, accompanies and records the lives of the people around her.
For example, there is the neighbor Mr. Pohl, who suffers from claustrophobia and shares the apartment with his dog Lori, a Miniature Pinscher crossbreed. There is Mrs. Wiese, who sleeps badly and one day falls in love with Mr. Schnepp, the new tenant of the house.
Legend:
The discovery of the tenements as a literary subject: Mariana Leky’s stories take place in such a Berlin block of flats.
IMAGO / Panthermedia
But there is also Ulrich, the first-person narrator’s uncle, who used to be a psychoanalyst. Or her goddaughter Lisa, who just can’t forget her lovesickness. One almost believes that Mariana Leky experienced it all herself, she draws her characters so vividly and lovingly.
grief is part of it
The stories are wonderfully comforting without trivializing life’s sorrows. “Every feeling has to be experienced somehow,” says the author. In her opinion, it is part of the standard program to feel grief once in a while.
In one of the stories, Uncle Ulrich, the former psychoanalyst, ends up in the hospital. There he is cared for by Sister Gertrud:
«Gertrud storms in at irregular intervals. She is excellent in charging and in emergency braking. ‹What have I got?›Uncle Ulrich asks Gertrud, and you can see that he is afraid. ‹I don’t know, I didn’t study medicine›says Gertrude, ‹but neither does your fear.› Then she storms out again.
We look after her like an apparition. Fear did not study medicine – for this sentence alone we would like to decorate Gertrud with a cross of merit. Angst pretends to know everything, to have studied everything, but all her diplomas are fake.”
Magical and humorous
The magic of this «Mariana Leky sound» lies in its imagery, which is never wrong and always makes you smile because it is so surprising and plausible at the same time.
In the end, it’s “just” a herniated disc. Uncle Ulrich is relieved and can continue to casually give the people around him little diagnoses of their psyche. When he left, he wished his sister Gertrud “a very happy childhood”. Also a nice point that is so typical for this magical book.
Mariana Leky likes to refer to the German writer Wilhelm Genanzino, who once said: “Anything can be endured near a woolen blanket.” The same could be said of their lyrics. Leky’s stories are like a blanket that you put on when life is getting a little uncomfortable.